30 Eerie Sentences

Summary:

Notes:

Per challenge rules, semicolons and dashes were abused. (Dash was not. Much.)

Almost all of these are future fic, some have adult content, and there's a whole lot of Marshall/Dash. Fills set in the canon era, any pre-Mars/Dash, as well as any set in a specific ongoing verse or canon-divergent AU are specified in the chapter notes.

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against the wall

If he isn't as insane as Marshall Teller's always accusing him of being, he'll push him away now, run, maybe toss an insult over his shoulder as a parting shot, make a mental note to avoid running into self-righteous paranormal investigators in alleys when he's got important business to conduct in the future; he certainly won't pull Marshall closer, won't give in to the sensation of warm breath and soft lips on his skin, won't allow whatever weirdness is motivating this thing between them to win another round.

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"Oh, you can leave now," said Dash, grinning when Marshall made no move toward the door, only fumed and clutched the bed sheet tighter to himself as though Dash hadn't already seen everything more than once, "but per the terms of our little wager, you're still not getting your clothes back for the next twenty-four hours—which is something you should have thought about earlier, along with the fact that you really suck at strip Monopoly."

Notes:

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"Dang it, Dash, I asked if you and Mars used the last of the chocolate sauce, not how," said Simon, making a mental note that they were revisiting the policy against oversharing at next week's apartment meeting along with the one about remembering to put stuff on the grocery list.

Notes:

Pre-Marshall/Dash

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"You know, sometimes I almost think you want to get caught," says Marshall, grabbing Eerie's most infuriating petty criminal by the shirt front and feeling a small moment of triumph as a look of panic flashes across Dash's face.

Notes:

Marshmelon (Marshall/Melanie/Devon) AU

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He doesn't want to disturb them, but the pins-and-needles feeling becomes too much to bear, so he wakes Melanie when he gently slides his arm out from underneath her head, then jostles Devon, curled around his other side, as he tries to shake the circulation back into his fingers; they react with twin sleepy smiles and noises of contentment, rearranging their bodies back against his, and for a moment Marshall is overwhelmed with the sensation that he's just woken up in the best of all possible worlds.

Notes:

Pre-Marshall/Dash

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He's disgusted, betrayed by his own body and what he knows of his own mind, further horrified by the realization that the only person he trusts to know enough about what malevolent forces of weirdness might be capable of messing with someone's dreams—because what other explanation is there, really?—is also precisely the last person on Earth he can ask.

Notes:

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"You guys are pushing forty-six," reminded Marshall, averting his eyes from his still-giggling parents and wondering if this was the sort of thing they got up to in the living room all the time now that he and Syndi had moved out, "and at your age having a tickle fight is both weird and gross, not to mention probably dangerous."

Notes:

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As he practiced stripping off the tear away pants in one smooth motion, Simon reflected that after all these years he really should have learned to get the full mission briefing before blurting out, "Undercover is my life!"

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"It was only a little bit of illegal street racing," said Melanie, "and okay, maybe not the best choice of first date activity, but nothing I thought a member of Eerie's most notorious biker gang wouldn't be able to handle!"

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Simon took the book, wondering what suddenly made him the only person here qualified to perform a simple banishing ritual he'd seen Marshall pull off at least twice in the past—right up until he saw the blush covering his associate's face and heard his other associate snicker.

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It was why life as a professional weirdness investigator required nerves of steel and an even stronger stomach; some days you got definitive—or at least mostly definitive—proof of the parabelievable, other days you got proof of the secret affair your former principal was having with Miss Annabel Lee and Fred Suggs.

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There's nothing gentle about this—nothing tender in the grip Dash has on his hair or in the way he digs his fingers into Dash's flesh as he pulls him closer then stifles the resulting cry with a kiss that's nearly as brutal; nothing resembling affection in their clash of words and lips and bodies—only two people working out their frustrations with each other in a way that satisfies them both.

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"See, Dash, it's a perfectly valid alternate spelling," said Marshall, leaning over the board and brandishing the Scrabble dictionary with as evil a grin as had ever crossed his face in this reality or any other, "and on the triple word score, which means per house rules, I'll be taking those pants and the penalty for a failed challenge now."

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As he comes back to himself and opens his eyes to find Dash hovering over him with an expression that seems part smug triumph and part fear, he realizes his most immediate problem is he isn't sure what to say—he guesses most people in this situation for the first time would probably go with terms of endearment, all which are right out in their case; a thank you seems stupid; and while he's struck with the urge to apologize for the mess they've just made of Dash's bedding, that would probably sound even stupider—so instead he settles on "Wow," the word coming out a little breathless and a little shaky, and punctuates it with a kiss, which turns out to be the right thing, or at least close enough.

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"I can't believe you and my sister still watch this garbage, Dash—I mean, between the low production values, the bad dialogue, the plotlines that go absolutely nowhere, and…and how the hell is Todd in bed with Carol Rumplemeyer right now when she got eaten by a shark during their honeymoon last year?!"

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There are one hundred and six burning candles, and even though at least seventeen of them are tricks and they're all having the effect anybody with common sense would expect on the chocolate mocha java ice cream cake underneath, the proof that his now-oldest associate has been paying this much attention to Marshall's personal experience of the passage of time in a life spent running wild over temporal boundaries is…well…he wipes his eyes, already stinging from the smoke, and turns to shout at Dash for creating a completely unnecessary fire hazard.

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There exists a somewhat common folk belief that jackalopes are attracted to country music, which turns out to be only partially true—country music's actual effect is to make jackalopes more attracted to each other, as was evidenced by the 1993 Eerie, Indiana Open Air Country, Western, and Bluegrass Festival, in the aftermath of which the local jackalope population more than tripled—and during which it was discovered that these are not the only species of cryptid in which this particular genre of music evokes this particular response.

Notes:

canon-era

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Simon wishes he had to the words to make Marshall understand why he likes hanging around his house so much—sure it's messy sometimes and there are a lot of rules, but there are also Edgar and Marilyn Teller's smiles, the way they remember everyone's favorite breakfasts, even the way they still play footsie with each other under the table when they think no one's looking; there's Marshall and Syndi's sibling banter and escalating prank wars that seem to always end in laughter instead of any real anger or violence; there's easy conversation instead of screaming, snacks in the kitchen instead of broken dishes, parents who help you with your homework and tuck you into bed at night instead of shouting insults from the couch until they finally pass out; there are movie nights where the entire family gathers around a big bowl of popcorn, a working (if still blinking 12:00) VCR, and a TV no one has ever even once tried to put a fist through—but tonight Marshall's impatient to leave and the mission calls, so Simon lets the other Tellers make him a bag of buttery popped kernels for the road, then follows his best friend out the door.

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He can't find a way to explain to Dash without screaming just how trapped he feels right now—trapped in this town, trapped in this weird mutual obsession they have with each other instead of a relationship, and most of all, trapped in this vault in the library basement with an army of fanged monstrosities on the other side of the door because his untrusted intimate associate is incapable of correctly reading a simple invocation.

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"Simon, there are horrors that cannot be unseen and then there are 'I accidentally walked in on my sister's bachelorette party during the stripper routine' horrors that cannot be unseen—now pass me the corn whiskey."

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It's possible certain misfortunes might have been avoided had the Eerie Public Schools' sex education curriculum at any point been more comprehensive—for example, if it had only included detailed information about condoms, how to use them, what common fertility rituals tended to impact their failure rates, and how to safely dispose of them in a town full of sympathetic magic users where residential waste management was frequently disturbed by the local fauna.

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"Um, look," he says, dropping his gaze to those strange-yet-fascinating marks on the backs of his companion's hands, "according the red-haired kid, the effects of whatever this Lethe stuff was in the town water supply are supposed to wear off in the next six hours or so…and I know right now I don't really know you, you don't really know me, and in the morning we're apparently gonna remember our relationship is," he meets the man's eyes again as he shapes his fingers into air quotes, "'mega-complicated,' but in the meantime, I've got a car I mostly know how to drive, you've got a key to what we're pretty sure is your place, the kid and the Radford guy seem to have things here under control, and I think I really like you…so why not take off and spend our last night as strangers getting to know each other?"

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Marshall's seldom witnessed anybody find as much joy in something mundane as Dash does in simply standing naked under hot water letting it run over his smooth, pale skin—if his lover's hands are also there and doing likewise, it's a welcome bonus Dash won't shun, but not essential to the pleasure he takes in this—which makes shower sex one more reminder of how many of life's small comforts Marshall has always been able to take for granted and how many Dash never will.

Notes:

Marshmelon (Marshall/Melanie/Devon) AU

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"I'm just saying that you're," here she points one slick finger at Devon, "the one who wanted to try erotic massage, and you're," this time she indicates Marshall, "the one who bought the world's slipperiest possibly cursed massage oil from the bargain bin at the World O' Stuff, which means the only person here not responsible for tonight's multiple injuries," she ignores a cough that sounds an awful lot like the words for once as she tries and fails to keep her hands from sliding off her hips, "is me."